Beyond the Door Where Evil Reigns

Prolouge

Aloysius felt the cold condensation on the sides of his water can. He sipped the water, his tongue slowly playing circles around the spout. Then, noticing the water was coming slower, he turned the water can upside down over his head and let the water pour out until it was finished. He shook his head in a doglike manner, spraying water in all directions, and then made his way over to the Throinsford entrance to the Auroruna. Aloysius was to rendezvous with an old friend here.

The night was shadowy and humid and the air quality was a shame to breath with all the air moisture and heat. The smell of fire floated from the village of Throinsford. It seemed as if a celebration was going on that night – there was a circle of people dancing around a fire at the outside of town. Their singing voices were distant but Aloysius knew what they were singing. He smiled and muttered the words along with them. His soft voice was a treat for the ears in the silence while he waited for his friend.

“A shivea lanika…A shivea ana…”

They were worshipping their gods. Aloysius had seen many gods come and go in popularity in his time, but none of them had lasted as long as this one had with the people. Perhaps it was because of their fruitfully good times; perhaps, in hardships, they needed to hold on to whatever god they could. This song, in particular, was usually used at funerals. The sad, slow verses expressed the loss and sorrow, but the chorus was full of the cheer of the celebration. What was a happier party to attend than a funeral?

Watching the dancing figures blurred by the smoke, Aloysius was kept on alert for the arrival of his friend. Eventually he began to hear, in undertone to the pounding and dancing feet, the quickened one-two of someone approaching him at a jog. He refrained from lowering his hand to the hilt of his sword, and kept his eyes fixedly on the people dancing at the funeral.

The quickened step of the approacher stopped, and they began to sneak forward. Then, distinctly, Aloysius heard the smooth, sliding sound of a sword being drawn. Helplessly, he let a thin smile stretch across his face as the person neared – three feet away, they drew in a slow breath; two feet away they ceased breathing altogether. One foot away and Aloysius could sense them raising their sword high above them for a fatal strike….

All in one fluid motion, Aloysius ceased his singing, reached down and drew his sword, turned, and brought it around so that the two swords met in a loud clang that shattered all silence of soft noises kept about them.

Aloysius found himself face-to-face with a young man, his face drawn up in surprise. He was subtlety handsome with soft brown hair that was obviously well attended to. While rather short and wiry, he possessed a certain fire that gave himself a presence of a man used to being in control. His thick eyebrows furrowed at first, but then, surveying Aloysius, a smile that was not rather charming, but still good-natured, broke out on his face. He lowered his naked sword and sheathed it, as Aloysius did the same.

“Well, Aloysius, so it is you! I thought it might be another – hardly recognized you, I mean, with such a good singing voice and all.”

Aloysius chuckled at the young man’s joke. Then he threw his arms around the other and pulled him in an embrace. When they separated they both were bearing such broad grins that it seemed unlikely that it was any sort of grave business that brought them there.

“Haven’t seen you in forever,” Aloysius said, making a stabbing attempt to keep the warm feeling about for a bit longer. But the graveness in his voice betrayed him, and his friend sighed and shook his head, sadly. Aloysius noted that his back was arched in a kingly and superior way that he had never seen on him. He also noted that when he spoke again, his voice was powerful and smooth.

“When you gave the message for me to come here tonight, you sounded rather urgent and hurried. What is the matter, Aloysius? It was hard for me to get away tonight – you know that no prince can easily leave without accomplices. I know that you are my most trusted servant, being my guardian, but having to walk all this way, unprotected…? I sincerely hope that what you called me for was dire.”

Aloysius looked about, as if expecting to see spies out at this time of the night, by a funeral party, and when finding no one, he turned to face the young man, the prince, and spoke to him in whispered tones.

“I would have come to meet you at the castle myself but it seems as if there might be a betrayer amongst us.”

The prince was not surprised at these words. “There always is, I understand – continue.”

“Well,” Aloysius began again, “Ever since the Wvoxi was closed, I’ve been looking for someone meddling with darker powers, and now, my prince, I think there just might be something of notice amiss. The dark powers all have been imprisoned, but some dark incantations may have reached educated ears. I’ve been through the ancient wars, Rhys, and I can feel it when I’m breathing in the putrid fumes of a powerful spell. It could be that, just perhaps, someone is planning to build a wall again.”

Silence filled the air around them. Aloysius looked over at Prince Rhys, expecting to see a frightened expression, and was rather taken aback when he saw his friend’s features drawn in a skeptical manner.

“A…wall?” Rhys asked, raising his eyebrows.

Aloysius sighed in exasperation. “A Black Wall, dolt.”

The Prince’s expression was not as far pronounced as his skeptical one – his eyes merely darkened, as they had fallen half an inch back into his head. They flickered over to his left and right and landed on Aloysius. “A Black Wall? To block off what, do you suppose?” There was a venomous tone to his voice, now, and Aloysius put back up his guard. Perhaps the friendly insults were best kept at a minimum.

“Since the Black Wall is meant to block off worlds from each other, and this is no small one brewing, I would suppose that it is to block off Dakr’s City from the Auroruna.” Aloysius said this with a casual flick of his head back toward Throinsford, and then, to the other side, a huge sprawling city by the name of Dakr.

“What would they gain by that?” Rhys blurted – his words ran together, hurried and rushed.

“I’ve been thinking on that. I suppose cutting off Dakr’s City from all other places would give its dictator complete power. The people would have no where else to go and their resources would be gone. The caster would then need a way to get their resources. They would, of course, have to still go to the Auroruna to get resources, since entering the Forbidden Land could be deadly. I’m assuming that the caster would overthrow the king, of course, and leave themselves an opening in the Wall to get to the Auroruna. There would probably be a secret passage to go through to the Auroruna where they could get goods to disperse to the people. But with the people so dependent on the dictator, the dictator would be able to do no wrong. Imagine it – complete power, one spell.”

Prince Rhys shook his head in disgrace. The two friends watched each other in silence for a while, examining the fruitful land of the Auroruna. The funeral party was ending and the crowd around the fire was thinning. A few people glanced over their shoulders to the large, populated City looming in the background. Dakr’s City was the largest city in existence and was first built to house Lady Dakr’s huge army. Now it had many millions of other residents – the army was tiny and consisted of a few thousand men who spent their whole lives at home. When Dakr’s Army took over all the small, rebellious countries of the Auroruna and united them under one banner, the Army’s days were over. Even though Dakr’s City retained a dictatorship and the Auroruna had an open democracy, the two governments were eternal allies and friends. They had lived like so for many of thousands of years.

Finally, after the last of the funeral party had left, Prince Rhys turned to Aloysius and began to speak his response.

“That would take many years to accomplish,” he said. Aloysius sighed and nodded. Another silence fell, but for not as long this time, for the Prince seemed anxious to speak.

“So do you have any idea about who it could be?” he asked, nodding toward the castle that was barely visible. It was centered in the City and was many miles away. Its spires were sometimes beautiful ebony and stone-cold black brick or, at other times, shining ivory and diamond. A burning flame shimmered above it – a flame that was fabled to never go out.

“Most definitely someone who lives in the castle,” Aloysius assured the Prince. The Prince nodded and indicated that Aloysius should continue. “Someone on the higher levels, someone who is close to the King…. It would probably be someone who’s been exposed to magic and has a guardian. I think that narrows it down to around twenty people. But then, also,” Aloysius said, his expression darkening, “It would have to be someone who had stolen the key to the dungeons from me and dared to look inside. Only then could that person obtain enough power to cast this spell. The creatures inside would have transferred their power to any innocent they saw.”

Aloysius put his hand in his coat, dangerously close to the hilt of his sword. “This would leave only one person, Prince Rhys. And that…would be you.”

They were in the position they had greeted each other in so quickly that it seemed as if nothing had happened in between. Aloysius found himself face-to-face with the same old friend he had meant to meet with tonight, but the handsome features were drawn in a grimace and the teeth were bared back in a disgustingly doglike snarl. And when this fine Prince and friend spoke, it was a growl.

“I didn’t just look at them,” he claimed, foam at the corners of his mouth. “I talked to them and promised them release. Forchia, scomparsa and bruto have become my servants. I will need no human, resentful and rebellious army under my power – these creatures will keep my people in poverty and me in power.”

Aloysius tore his sword from Prince Rhys’s and made a lunge toward him. Rhys blocked the blow, and held his friend’s sword there with panting and gasping breaths. “But you couldn’t have thought of this plan and obtained this power with just those three mindless creatures. What else did you find in those dungeons?” Aloysius asked conversationally. But while talking, the prince had managed to make a shallow cut on Aloysius’s right arm. The skin burned for a second and then healed itself without shedding any blood.

“Her,” Rhys gasped, grinning at the wound he had inflicted.

There was a loud clatter, but not of the swords meeting each other. Aloysius had let his sword fall to the ground, and, amazed, he stared from his empty fingers and then back up to the Prince, whose face was contorted in a wild smile.

“Yeah,” the Prince chuckled, giving his head a cocky little shake. “Yeah, that filthy little whore made love to me that lustful night. And, she said,” Rhys grin broadened here, “It was best she’s had in a thousand years.”

Aloysius, with the Prince’s sword to his throat, had now recovered from the shock. “It’s the only she’s had in a thousand years, idiot.”

Rhys pressed his sword deep into Aloysius throat but it did not draw blood. Unsurprised, he continued to speak. “I would like you to know that she has given me the power to destroy even the likes of you. She has even granted me the permission and, might I say, the order.”

Aloysius let his eyes close for a second. He knew that his friend was either bluffing or he had soaked up the woman’s words on the bed. But if the Prince could get as far to reach such a lustful and powerful creature, the there was more danger at hand then ever. Releasing the woman was a different manner – only someone with natural power like him could release her. But locked away in the dungeons, she could inflict serious damage and destruction with a servant such as Rhys running about and executing her plan for her.

For a second Aloysius allowed himself to envision the woman. Her sun-kissed skin and eyes that had seemed a deep green at the time that Aloysius had loved her – she was a demon or a goddess, as their kind referred to themselves. Their allure was irresistibly strong and many a man and a guardian, one with such power as himself, had fallen to their power.

The most sinful of them all was the Queen of the Goddesses – Jezebel. And she had come very close to killing Aloysius many thousands of years ago. Now her threat was on him again, and she had taken his very close friend and master from him. If this plan succeeded, she could also steal the world he loved and knew.

“You fool,” Aloysius spat. With one hand he knocked the Prince’s sword aside and pushed him down to the ground. He placed one foot at his throat and listened to him splutter.

“You’re a fool, Rhys. A fool and a lout. All areas below the waist have overthrown the brain and the man I once knew and loved. Jezebel gives you no power – you a servant for her, a thing to be used. When you walked in, she saw you as a key to her escape. She’s made you rash and obtuse and witless. You might as well crawl on ALL FOURS for all I care you slithering, slimy creature that –”

Aloysius stopped short as he heard what Prince Rhys was spluttering through the boot that was pressing into his windpipe. It was a smooth, odd language – the same one that made the words to the song sung at the funeral.

“Crecret anah sayson…”

But these words, in particular, were the last words to seal the spell that formed the Black Wall. Aloysius kicked the Prince and stepped even harder on his throat, but there seemed to be no way to stop him. Aloysius’s sword was cast aside and he was unwilling to kill such a familiar face and friend to end the spell.

Aloysius looked to see a faint shimmering forming by the borders between the Auroruna and Dakr’s City. It was so close that he could reach out and touch it.

“Your making a mistake, Rhys!” he shouted, but Rhys continued on in gasping and spluttering breaths, spit flying from his mouth and his eyes slammed shut in pain and desperation. Casting a glance at the shimmering wall of light, and then to his sword ten feet away, Aloysius gathering up as much power as he could in such a short time and flung the first thing that came to his mind at the Prince.

The Prince began to writhe. There was a liquid all over his body and it began to eat away at his skin, particularly at the left side of his body. But the spell continued from his mouth.

With a last, desperate lunge Aloysius jumped toward his sword. He knew he had to kill the Prince before he said the last words or there would be no undoing the Black Wall. He flung it up in the air and made to bring his sword crashing down on his beloved friend. But just as he lifted the sword, the Prince’s lips fell silent.

The sword came crashing down on the ground, instead. Prince Rhys sucked in some last, desperate breaths and then began to crawl, on all fours, back toward the city. Aloysius watched him go, and lay with his naked sword in his hand, staring at one singular spot on the vast wall before him, where only minutes ago a fire had been burning.

Seeing the shimmering light, a few people had run across the borders into the city, and now they all stood watching the wall with Aloysius. And though it first started as a chuckle, Aloysius slowly began to laugh. And there he laughed harder then he had in the approximate thirteen thousand and six hundred years he had been alive.

Okay, first off. You use too many words in sentences, they are overly long. This story, which is dragged down by those over-long sentences, would benefit from them being chopped down a bit. Also, you deliver too much too quickly. In all aspects. You have a good plot, a great world, and some awesome sounding villains and heroes all of which is ruined by this hasty writing. You should introduce all this--the guardian (a long lived sorcerer, it seems), the evil demonic beings and black magic, the other worlds to which travel is made possible--all this should be unveiled slowly while you set about making the scene and main character familiar to us, the readers. The plot twist, with the prince being a turncoat, is awesome but it has no impact as we dont know who he is, what he has betrayed, and the friend (Aloysius) he abandoned in an intimate manner. You should describe their friendship, their lives and how they are connected, then build up suspense by gradually making Aloysius piece together clues showing that theirs a traitor and further that the traitor is none other then his friend and charge, Prince Rhys.

This could benefit so much from a rewrite its disturbing. I dont want to point out the errors, grammatical or otherwise because I truly think that this will be better if rewritten and so showing the mistakes would be pointless. Tell me though, if you want me to and I'll come back and do so.

Jiggy

This , in a really kinda wierd way, reminded me of the mysticalness and magicel feeling i got when reading lord of the rings , but it wasent like coppy write or annything. It was acctually fun to read and i didnt just read it to give a comment .

One thing to improve on thou was his location at the begining, I mean, we dont really know what an aurona is or were it is.
And it did drag a bit , not cause of bordom or bad style but you kept doing youre sentences really long .

but other than these it was really welldone and, compared to my stuff this is like jk rowling

See, what I was planning on doing was introducing this aspect and then jumping foward to the main character a handful or so years later, in which this character will unravel the mysteries from there. But if you believe, still, that I should linger more on Aloysius and Prince Rhys for an effect, I'd most certainly love to abide. After all, they only happen to be my favorite characters =]

Chapter One

Jack had grown a lot over the summer, for which he was thankful. He wouldn’t have appreciated going to his new school in Connecticut short and underdeveloped, less than his sister who was the same age as he. Still, he was gawky among the students of the school – there was no way that their life here would be any better than life anywhere else.

School had been in session for a little over a week, and Jack’s twin sister, Jade, had already fallen into a crowd. While Jack was the more intelligent of the two, he was usually more awkward then Jade was – long, lanky and lacking muscle, he sometimes stuttered his speech or hung in the shadows. Jade, on the other hand, was witty and sarcastic and always had some sort of comment to throw in. She was highly political and always was found debating with one person or another.

For example, Jack could always be found donning some sort of jeans and some sort of plain and solid T-shirt (usually ratty and worn). He had bought all of these items at the thrift shop. In fact, Jade’s clothes, as well, were all from either the thrift shop or her friends. But her clothing was usually ripped, written on, or carrying chains.

They had to shop at the thrift shop because it was the easiest way to cut money out of their family budget. Their father worked at many various places before in New York City, most of them low-paying, and when he had trouble finding work there, they moved to Connecticut, where he could claim a rather hellish job in a factory.

It had not always been like so, for Jack’s mother had once held an executive position in New York City. She had earned enough money to support the family, and their father had worked small jobs on the side. It could have easily continued with life like this if Jack’s mother, on one day in late November, hadn’t passed away.

It had been rather sudden. It happened about six years ago, when Jack and Jade were both nine and their little sister, Esmeralda (whom they had all come to call “Mera”), was only six. Jack could distinctly remember sitting in the hospital next to Jade, while Mera had perched herself on Father’s lap. After Father had come back from visiting their mother and talking to the doctors, he looked shaken. He had gone back and talked with the doctors a couple more times, until one of these conversations had become an argument.

Jack’s father, an olive-skinned and gruff-faced man, had been up in some poor doctor’s face, screaming, while spit flew from his mouth. Jack could distinctly remember the way the doctor had said “Calm down, sir, please calm down.” He remembered thinking how the doctor could make such a request when it was not his wife lying there in a hospital bed and he was the one not being permitted entrance.

So, eventually, Jack and his sisters had visited their mother.

And then they understood why they weren’t being allowed to see her.

Their mother’s usual deep-colored skin was slightly wrinkled, she was drained and her hands were bony and shaking violently as they reached out to caress each child’s face. Her lips attempted to mutter words, but they seemed to be far too bloated and dumb to form much. Even when they could understand her, she didn’t say much of anything that made sense. A couple of disconnected phrases, a name of a loved one or someone none of them knew, and then her head would sag back on the pillows again.

Jack could remember staring into her eyes. Their mother was always such a strong, sensible and right-minded woman. Her eyes always had a rigid tone to them that was hard and, yet, kind. But now they were pale and wearied, confused and even…pathetic. His mother had only managed to squeeze a few tears out of them in the time they were in there.

While sitting around the bed in that cold, white hospital, Jack listened more to his father talking with the doctors again more then lending an ear to his incoherent mother. They explained that someone had broken into their apartment while their mother was there. They had gotten in through the window and, since her mother was standing directly by the window, some of the glass had gotten lodged in her feet. The intruder had, undoubtedly, beaten her, and when the TV had landed on her head and knocked her out, she had suffered some brain damage.

“She’s suffering from internal bleeding and we’re not able to stop it. She’s loosing it too quickly and it seems that the circuits in her brain are shutting off, one by one. Soon, even if we could save her, she, herself, will be gone.”

And so it seemed so. No matter how many times Father talked to the doctor, no matter how many times Mera cried because Mother wouldn’t talk to her, and no matter how many times, days later, they had badgered the police for information that left with dead ends and lines, it was confirmed: their mothers was not coming back.

After she had died and they had bought a new TV and moved to a new apartment, their Father had…given up. He began drinking heavily every day, loosing job after job because of his drinking disorder, and he attended various AA meetings to no avail. Once or twice he had beaten them, particularly Jade when her tongue was let loose. After a few years, the three children learned to avoid home and their father as much as possible.

So the three children had all already gotten library cards from the local library and Jack, himself, spent most of his time in there. It was located next to a very nice, cheap convenient store that Jack could visit to buy some things; usually groceries that their father had forgotten to purchase or other necessities that had a continuous absence at their home. Jack was even considering getting a job there until Jade had claimed a position. After that had happened, Jack decided it was best for him to look elsewhere for employment.

Right now Jack was in between the library and the convenience store, clutching an armful of books. Most of them were cheap paperbacks, one of them a classic novel and another was a poetry book. Jack had always wanted to look into poetry, and seeing this old dusty novel on a bookshelf, he had been so tempted to grab it that he snatched and dropped some books next to it in the process.

The wind blew at his hair, which was deep brown, messy and slightly overgrown. Keeping his head down, Jack began the steady march to the store, reaching into his pocket to see what change he had. One dollars, six quarters and one dime – not nearly enough to buy a pack of batteries. Maybe with Jade’s employee discount he might be able to scrape it, but he doubted it. What was the discount, again? Five percent? And all that for a measly minimum wage?

Jack pushed open the door or the store and listened to the loud beeping sound that resulting, announcing his entrance to the store. He drifted through the detectors and, immediately, they started to beep. The first time this had happened Jack was confused and distressed – he had, of course, just entered the store, so he couldn’t have stolen anything. But he had later found out that the alarm was old and malfunctioned and went off randomly. Shaking his head and clutching his books, he made his way up to the counter.

A sullen-looking teenager was standing behind the counter, donning an employee’s shirt and a name tag that read, in bold black letters, the name JADE.

Jade’s hair, which was usually chopped in odd fashions by her cheap seven-dollar hairstylist, was drawn back in a ponytail. She was ringing up a series of very adult magazines for a man who was well over fifty years old. When he had finished paying, he stuffed the bag inside another one from another store and made haste to hurry out the door.

Jack leaned against the counter and looked up at his sister. Jade clicked her black tip nails together and looked down at her brother impatiently. Her eyes bore an unnecessary amount of black eyeliner and mascara, which, as Jack always joked, made her eyes far too heavy to keep open and caused her to blink incessantly.

“What?” she snapped.

“I need batteries,” he explained. “But I only have two bucks. Do you have any change on you?”

Jade strictly shook her head. She looked around fervently, hoping that someone would come and demand service in line. But all the occupants of the store seemed to still be browsing. “No, I don’t, but Mera might. Where is she, anyway? She was supposed to be with you.”

Jack shrugged and hastily glanced over his shoulder to make sure that there was still no line. “Jade, she’s twelve years old. She can be on her own for a bit. I suppose she’s probably still in the library. At least, that’s where a saw her last.”

Jade tapped her nails on the counter for a few seconds, looked at the ceiling and then sighed heavily. “Go find her, Jack. She was talking to me a couple of days ago about some guy and I don’t want her to do anything she’ll regret. Anyway, you need the money for the batteries. Three bucks won’t cut it – they aren’t on sale.” She paused, and then continued in a more accusatory tone. “What do you need the batteries for, anyway?” she demanded.

“CD player,” Jack explained. “It’s old and sort of broken so it eats up batteries like crazy.”

“You listen to music too much,” Jade snapped, sounding an awful lot like their mother used to sound. She looked up to see some tired looking woman in her young twenties standing next in line and twitched her head toward the door, her ponytail whipping about, indicating that Jack should leave.

Jack scooped up his books and walked out the door. This time the alarm did not go off and he exited the store in peace. Turning and facing the wind, he made his way back to the library.

When he was in between the two stores again, he looked down the small, trashy alleyway that separated them. There was an assortment of boxes, a trashcan that was sure to never be used, and a rusty door that had not been open in years upon years.

But it was neither the rusty door nor the trashcan that had drawn Jack’s attention. His attention was drawn to a young girl who was sitting on one of the unstable boxes, completely covered by a boy. They were making out viciously, and, from what he could see, the boy’s hands were all over the girl’s body. Jack looked away, mildly disgusted, and walked on to the library.

While pushing open the library doors something came to his mind that Jade had said about Mera. It was something about a guy. Jack thought back to the girl in the alleyway and felt even more disgusted. He should find Mera right away. She was foolish and he didn’t want her to wind up like some street trash like that little girl with that much older boy.

Jack gathered his books up tighter in his arm and set off to search for Mera. He looked up and down the aisles of bookcases, his head rotating left and right. When he did not see her, he began to pace the aisles, looking more carefully. After ten minutes his heart pace began to quicken just a step. Where had Mera gone, anyway? She had been over in the Nonfiction section, looking for something for a school project, but she wasn’t anywhere over there. Nor was she near the CDs, the magazines, the videos, the Fiction books, the children books or the help desk or the main desk.

Jack rushed up to the main desk. “Hello, miss?” he gasped.

The librarian looked up and smiled at his. “Yes?” she asked in a sweet voice. It was almost sickly sweet on such a dreary and windy day as this, and Jack’s rushed feelings did not promote her sweetness at all. Nevertheless, he was rushed and worried.

“Did you see a girl in here? She was about twelve, tall for her age, really long brown hair…. She was wearing a gray sweater and a nice long skirt….”

The librarian stopped and looked at Jack for second, then furrowed her brow in obvious concentration. As if coming to a sudden epiphany, she nodded and smiled. “Yes, dear,” she said. “She left here about fifteen minutes ago. Actually, I think not long after you left.”

But Jack did not need the librarian to tell her where and when his sister had left anymore. He thought back to the girl he had seen in the alleyway. She had worn a gray sweater, yes, and that girl’s skirt was long and black, even if the boy’s hand had pushed the fabric all the way up to her upper thigh.

Enraged and without another word to the librarian, Jack dashed out of the library and sprinted to the alleyway. They were both still there, in basically the same position, except now Mera was no longer sitting on a box and now was up against the brick wall of the library.

For a few seconds, Jack just stared at the scene in front of him. Mera was twelve years old, his sister, and some boy who might even be older then Jack himself was sitting there with his hands on her. Jack’s first thought was to go over and rip that boy from his sister’s body and tear him limb from limb. But, dumbstruck, Jack stood there in the windy street and simply observed.

Their slobbering lasted for only a couple of seconds longer before Mera, her lower lip droopy and wet, turned and stared straight at Jack. The boy stared at him, too – he was taller, more muscular and older than Jack, as he had assumed. Jack twitched his arm slightly and gave an odd-sounding groan.

“Oh,” Mera said, her voice dead. “Hi, Jack.”

Jack considered charging the boy, again, but his feet seemed planted in the sidewalk. “I…uh…I think we should go, then,” Jack stuttered. His voice sounded weak and shaky, and he longed to control it.

“Jack!” Mera whined. She shook her body to dislodge the boy’s arm from her waist, but stared at her older brother pleadingly.

Body stick straight, Jack said, slightly stronger now – “Fix your skirt, its cold out. And we’re going. That’s final.” With a final glance at the boy, he pointed his arm awkwardly away. “Leave.”

The boy stumbled and then sprinted out of the alleyway and out of sight.

Jack awkwardly walked down the alley to his sister, who sniffled. “What…” Jack squeaked. He cleared his throat deeply and then restarted – “What were you thinking? I don’t even know who that kid is. And he looked like he was five years older than you. This is stupid.”

Now snorting and wiping her nose, Mera spluttered a couple of words. “We were only kissing,” she gasped. Her voice broke and she started sobbing softly.

“Oh, come on!” Jack groaned. He threw his hands in the air and looked away.

“Shut up…,” Mera sobbed, and began to hiccup.

Jack didn’t say anything after that. He listened to Mera cry for a bit until she began to breathe normally and she finally slowed down to the point where she was simply sniffling. He knew that any boy interested in a girl so young was bad news. In fact, he would think any boy interested in her, period, was bad news. This was all besides the fact that she was just twelve years old and not even a teenager.

“C’mon, Mera, let’s go.” Jack eventually managed to say. He noticed that Mera was not looking at him but the old rusted door that, it turned out, was not rusted but just a very mangy wood. It was unusually tiny but still bore the words EMPLOYEE’S ONLY on it. Knowing that Jade didn’t go in this door meant that it was probably for whatever company had previously owned the building.

After a period of silence, Mera spoke up. “I hate you,” she muttered.

“Don’t be so dramatic,” Jack snapped at her. He took some deep breaths and then reached to take her hand. Mera slapped it away. Heaving a sigh, he began to walk down the alleyway and was glad to find that Mera was obediently following him. She walked with her head hung. Her hair was still messed up on one side from where the boy had run his fingers through it.

“You…won’t tell dad?” she asked when they emerged onto the street. Jack shook his head. He knew that if he told his father the results could be disastrous. He would probably scream and demand to see Mera. And when he did…well, the punishment would surely be a bit more then a usual grounding.

“No, I won’t tell dad,” Jack assured his little sister. “But I will tell Jade. And you will be punished.”

Mera gave out a little whimper but quieted herself further as they walked into the store. Her eyes were burning red and she was still sniffling. The line was long up to the counter, where Jade still stood, oblivious of the fiasco that had taken place outside. As they waited on the line, Jack tried to calm himself further so he wouldn’t say anything else to make his sister burst out in tears. Every time he thought he had come to a reasonable state of mind, though, the image of his sister entwined with that boy popped in his mind. He couldn’t help feeling guilty about not handling the situation better.

Finally the two of them came before Jade. She looked at the red-eyed Mera and immediately demanded to know what had happened.

“Well,” Jack began, a venomous tone to his voice, despite all he tried to keep himself kind and calm, “I looked for Mera in the library and she wasn’t there. And I found her with a boy,” he spat the word like it was a curse, “In that alleyway between this store and the library. And he was raping her…”

Jade gasped and started at Mera, who immediately blurted “We were kissing.”

“Viciously,” Jack added under his breath. Mera shot him a contemptuous glance and Jack could’ve sworn he heard the young girl growl deep in her throat.

“And his name is Larry, not boy.”

Jade leaned low and looked Mera in the eye. Mera stood her ground and glared back for a handful of seconds, but as soon as Jade began to speak Mera looked away in shame.

“I, Jack, Mom and Dad did not,” Jade scolded, “raise you to be like this. We did not spend our time and money to feed you and educate you so that you could start to sleep around before you’re even fifteen. I mean, I can’t believe you did this Mera. It’s so not like you.”

Mera muttered something that was incomprehensible.

“What did you say?” Jade demanded.

“I said,” Mera claimed, raising her voice. “That you raised me to be an alcoholic, instead. And you guys aren’t my parents, no matter how much you act like it. You ground me and watch me constantly like I’m some sort of child.”

“You are a child,” Jack barked.

At this point Jack was well aware that everyone in the store was secretly or, even, openly staring at them in their argument. He could see some elder woman leaning around the chip aisle to stare straight at them. Grimacing he grabbed Mera’s wrist and muttered “let’s go”, rushing her out of the store.

At first he was about to drag Mera home despite all the protesting she might do, but realized that people might accuse him of trying to kidnap her or something. Already she was opening her mouth to shout accusations at him.

“Shush,” he said. “Let’s go to that Café over there and I’ll buy you some hot cocoa or something.”

Mera tried to tear her wrist from Jack’s grip but he held her tighter. Her eyes squinted in a hard glare at him for a few seconds, but then her expression softened. “I want coffee,” she insisted.

“All right,” Jack said, slipping his hand from her wrist to her hand and leading her forward. “But I’m pretty sure you’re going to hate it. It’s very bitter, you know, and it doesn’t make you look adult at all when you wind up throwing it out after a few sips.”

Mera let her fingers slip from Jack’s and gave a glance back to the alleyway she had been in five minutes ago. “I want coffee,” she muttered.